Featured Best Buy Booze: Spiced Jack No. 94

We’re trying out something a little bit new this week. Rather than combining the review of the best buy budget booze AND the first cocktail of the week, we’ll be divying up the review and the first cocktail so people who just want the review can read that, and people who are just interested in the cocktail can jump straight to that.

As a Navy pilot stationed in Bermuda in 1956, Lieutenant Jack Butler developed a taste for ﬁne rum and a reputation for rowdy carousing. After countless hours spent in his ramshackle bungalow, Jack perfected his recipe for blending spiced rum, using a top-secret combination of native spices to punch up the ﬂavor of the centuries-old traditional island rum. On a stormy day in late 1957, Jack’s plane disappeared without a trace…and later friends discovered that his stockpile of rum was mysteriously missing. What happened to Jack Butler and his perfect blend of island rum and spices? We may never know. Fortunately for us, however, Jack quietly enclosed the recipe in a letter to his brother shortly before he vanished. We now offer it to you, precisely as formulated so many years ago… as a tribute to Jack, wherever he may be.

Can it stand up to the Cocktails, 365 taste test? The notebook is primed and ready to go.

Straight out of the bottle seemed like the only way to drink this kind of rum. There’s a nice molasses flavor. Pleasant aromas of vanilla and sugar. There’s really not much of any kind of SPICE in there however. Not nearly as pronounced as say, Kraken Rum. Because it is 94 proof there is an unpleasant burn on the end of the drink, leaving a tingling across your tongue. A bit too harsh to drink neat unless you like your liquor rough. (Just like your mother, eh Trebeck?)

On the Rocks:

Some of the edge of the booze tasted neat is taken off one it’s cooled down with some ice. The harsh afterburn still hangs around afterwards, like that creepy guy who graduated high school a couple years ago but still hangs around the school in his Trans Am hitting on freshmen. We’re still not catching much of the spice that’s supposed to be in here. Vanilla is the dominant flavor with a bit of clove and cinnamon.

So despite some shortcomings as a stand alone liquor, I have high hopes for it as a base spirit for some great cocktails.